Civilization

 I am living in the most technologically and scientifically advanced, most militarily powerful, most affluent and culturally influential, civilization that the world has ever known. In terms of the markers that anthropologists consider when talking about the biggest, most influential, most complex civilizations, we are surely at the top.

We are also one of the great anti-civilizations of all time. I would say that the Romans at their most decadent, were probably not as bad as us. What do I mean by calling the United States an anti-civilization?

Well, most analysts of civilizations ancient and modern consider a civilization's material aspects to be most important. Not unlike the Communist Man, the Anthropological Civilized Man eats and drinks and sleeps and has shelter and can read and write more or less well, and how well a society does these things is 8/10ths of the signs of their being an advanced society. Traditionally a society's development of art, music, literature and such things were also considered a sign, but lets be honest: the most sublime music in the world might be made on some mountain slope in the Caucasus or the slopes of the Himalayas; but if the musicians drink from mud puddles they are not going to be considered members of an advanced society.

The relativity of art is now assumed, so if one person prefers Mozart and the other prefers Beavis and Butthead or just plain porn, that's just like your opinion man. Our society takes a strangely Soviet attitude towards art: quantity has a quality of its own. This statement was originally made of tanks and airplanes; that the Soviets didn't have tanks and airplanes that were AS GOOD, but they sure had a heck of a lot of them. Interestingly, while we take a rather Soviet production attitude towards art (production is production, quality is subjective,) no lavishing of money on tanks and airplanes is too much. There we definitely know art, not just what we like.

And I am not saying we don't have arts and letters and music and dance. We have more of it than anyone else. Almost all of that is devoid of certain values, but we will get to that in a moment. While I referred to our attitudes towards art as "Soviet," I meant in terms of valuing production for its own sake. Sausages are sausages are sausages, the more standardized the better. Only 7% sawdust! Soviet art itself was very much a matter of whether it glorified the revolution or not. So they were not so much interested in production in that case. If you glorified Communism you were accepted: if not watch out. That's one reason why actual Soviet art and culture was widely considered to be dog crap.

So, what we are left with as the measure of a civilization is how well the people eat and sleep and dress, whether we have basic writing and math skills and shelter and running water. In other words, completely materialistic criteria. And in all those, we are doing great. For those who measure a civilization by its arts and letters, well, take your pick. We have more creative works than anyone. We don't believe in any objective standards to any of it, but take what you like.

The human is a consumer of food and clothing and math and writing and shelter and running water and art and science and technology. Satisfy that well, and bingo, you are an advanced civilization. And you know, we all need such things or at least the basics. I may not need a new IPhone but I need clean drinking water and a roof over my head.

You may notice that what is missing from this picture are any humane values. Man in this picture is not a creature capable of nobility, a little lower than the angels: he is an output for which inputs must be devised. Preferably at the greatest possible profit. He is a sink for physical goods, he takes in food and water and shelter and clothing and art and technology and he spits out money. Devise the inputs, and Man produces the output, which is cash to build the coffers of the rich. The masses get stuff, the rich get richer, the system works.

The idea that that Man would develop personally or socially, beyond the needs of the system, is a non-sequitur. Learn how to be a better worker? Fine, great, that is admirable. Learn to be a better person? Does not compute.

And what is the foundry of all these humane values which society has no material use for? The family. What is the foundation of ALL? The foundation of turning a mere homo sapiens into a true human being made in the image of G-d? The foundation of LIFE ITSELF? The Lord G-d. 

So you see why this "civilization" must attack both the family and G-d. They are bugs in its machine.

It attacks the family by glorifying all sorts of *alternate sexual arrangements.* It does not merely permit these, no: it glorifies them. Queer is not an option, it is practically mandatory at this point. Sex is a commodity, romantic relationships are a commodity, and you are a consumer of it.

No other arrangement fits into the World-Machine.

It must attack G-d as being a competing authority. The Global Market must be the only authority.

The market meaning: not the free market, such a thing scarcely exists anymore. Rather it is the Global Market which they utterly dominate.

You are a consumer, you consume, period

You will work for us, you will buy from us, FULFILL YOUR FUNCTION, CONSUMER.

If you say otherwise, you are an extremist and a freak. This is the ultimate tyranny of our anti-civilization.

***

I have been reading a lot of Sayyid Qutb lately, and on one topic I absolutely disagree with him on. It is not possible to confront the World-Machine by force. If it is a battle of physical strength, the World-Machine, Jahilayyah (ignorance) as he called it, has already won. Of course, the reason he wound up swinging from a gallows instead of retiring to some nice university chair somewhere is that he did advocate jihad. Against, essentially, the whole world, though I guess not all at the same time.

Setting his suicidal quest for Jihad in Nasser's Egypt aside (Gamal Abdel Nasser not being a fan of such things, hence his execution,) he is spot-on on a whole lot of other things. He spoke a lot about civilization, meaning for him Islamic civilization, but whether you are Muslim or belonging to some other Abrahimic religion like me, his points on the needs of a G-d centered society are on target. The social foundation of such a society is the family, and the foundation of that is the mother. To be a mother is the single most important job on the planet, despite its reputation and poor perks: only mothers can center families and teach the next generation humane values. So the push to have women work jobs corrodes the very foundations of a G-d centered society. Which is probably kind of the point. To have women as well as men live self-centered materialistic lives as consumers. The kind of lives the World-System wants.

And far be it from me to tell any woman that she should abandon the career and stay at home to build her family. I don't want to have to tell anyone anything. Problem is, it's not me saying it. It's G-d saying it. I will grant you that we have work to do to ensure mothers a fair shake in this world: every husband should have to pay in X hundred dollars a week to a fund that is only released at the time of his death. So the death of a breadwinner need not destroy a family. There are many other such things that should be done to make sure that mothers are not treated as subjects and lackeys but as people doing the most important job on Earth. However, there is no doubt that in a G-d centered society, they or at least most of them need to be doing it. A humane society cannot survive without it.

And don't tell me that this IS a humane society. 60 MILLION pre-born children dead, and you want to tell me that? A leftist monopoly on media and presently on government trying to subvert every foundation of decent life, and you want to tell me that? Destroyed human beings littering the streets of California, and you want to tell me that this is a humane society?

THIS IS NOT A HUMANE SOCIETY. IT NEVER CAN BE ONE WITHOUT G-D AND HIS LAW.

Qutb, despite his rather delusional belief in jihad, was quite eloquent on the topic of what builds a G-d centered society. Part of that as he said is surely relief for the poor, but relief for the poor cannot be disconnected from efforts to lift them from their despair, and in this society lift them from drug and alcohol abuse and deranged life philosophies and many such other things. In other words relief for the poor must be a whole system of repairing the life, not just filling the bellies. This again is impossible without G-d.

A G-d centered society must not devolve into Stateolatry, such as we have so much of today. Socialism places the State in the center of all things: the State is god, to a socialist. Now, a classical limited-government scenario as is prescribed by many conservatives is not a solution either, it is just a limitation of the problem. If we continue with associating liberty with license, a limited government will only devolve to the socialist kind of government we are looking at today. It is not a coincidence that the once-freest nation on Earth is now devolving into a socialist one. Liberty without G-d is merely slavery to the passions and the Self.

So yes, we are living in the most technologically advanced civilization the world has ever known, and in what is in some ways one of the most spiritually backward civilizations the world has ever known. May the Lord free souls from this trap.

--------------------------------------

EDIT:
I said we are devolving into a socialist society: in fact no political labels from the 19th or 20th Centuries apply accurately. It is a new creature. What we are looking at is a massive centralization of economic control in the hands of a few dozens of massively powerful corporations, and meanwhile the centralization of State control. The State, which is functionally controlled by these massively powerful corporations. While such a society might have some superficial similarity to, say, the conditions in Germany under the Nazis where the economically powerful colluded with the politically powerful, in fact no society like this one has ever existed. Also in Nazi Germany, the politicians were clearly on top of this hierarchy: they fundamentally had control and the economically powerful just helped them and were helped by them.

The situation in America today is quite radically different from any kind of socialism that has existed before. Essentially it is a socialism that is an avenue for control by the massively powerful corporations who set a social and political agenda according to their needs.

What are those needs?

1.) They are tired of people taking family time. You belong to your corporation: if you get pregnant you need to get that little cancer on their profits removed. As Bloomberg once said, get that taken care of.

2.) Gay people don't generally procreate. So minimal family time is needed.

3.) They are tired of paying for your medical care. Nationalize that shit, so taxes can pay for it instead of them.

4.) Please get divided, America. The more you hate each other, the less of a threat you present. This has worked marvelously so far.

5.) You want to take Sundays off? You want to take Saturday (which is the actual Sabbath) off? You may want to have, like, moral principles? That may come in conflict with what we want from you?

AHAHAHAHAHAHA

We the corporations are your gods. So obviously religion is right out of the question.